Armor

[atgxtg]

I always think of the blow striking as aimed at a particular location, its just that you aim for it when an opening appears for a location , and you couldn't determine where the opening would appear- that made alot of sense with the RQ2 and RQ3 melee hit location tables as you were most likely to hit a limb.

Viewed like that , a precise attack 'bypass armour' means you are being even more selective about sending in your aimed strike - you are waiting for an opening in the armour and the guard before sending in a full blooded blow (there will be various passes, thrusts and swings that go as a matter of course in the battle, a miss on the roll may mean none of them had a chance of connecting) .

I am pretty sure that RQ2 described an attack in those terms, correct me if i'm wrong.

I agree with you as far as aiming and precise attacks go. After all how can you precislely hit something general?

I loved how Timelords did aiming for a location. You took the peanlty and made you roll, but if you missed the roll you might heat nearby. you would be off 1 location per point missed by (d20) and you would roll a d8 to get direction. This meant that if you aimed for dead center chest and just missed you probably hit a little above, below or to the side. If you aimed for a hand, you might get the arm, but probably just missed.

One viantant way to handle precise attacks to bypass armor would be to allow the player to declare the attack with no penalty, but only get the benefit if he hits the slected location. We could even let people roll d20 for hit location and take the one closest to the "aiming" point.

 

[atgxtg]

I think the main reason why you don't see heavy leather for the arms is that RQ2 didn't provide heavy leather for locations where cuirboilli was avaialable. Probably becuase is was similar, provided better protection, and only slighly more expensive.

Yet they had Soft and Hard Leather for other locations such as legs.. Why one set of limbs and not the other?

For the same reason they didn't have cuirobli for the lges, they seem to list one or the other. THe only real difference beteen heqavy leather and cuirboilli is a shot bath in boiling oil.

Maybe Gloranthan's don't worry about trans-fats?

I take it you are not a big RQ3 fan. Personally, I like RQ3 as much as RQ2, perhaps more (I don't like MRQ much at all).

Ahh no.. Avalon Hill saw fit to add Halflings, Orcs and Sorcery to a game that didn't need them. Oh and lets not forget Slarges! *shakes head*

he sorcery stuff was added for Glorantha and is still a part of HeroQuest.

As far as the rest, it was basically an attempt to make RQ more of a generic fantasy game as oppsed to being tied to a specific setting.

SInce Mongoose has gone the same route, and even makde the game OGL, thrown in "saving throw skills", initiative rolls, roll 4 drop one, and other D&D ism't, I think the game is now running in the direction that RQ3 started to walk in.

Lastly, a good suit of mail or plate will stop most sword blows. YOu might get some brusing (or chafing for that matter), but generally most strikes are not going to hurt let alone harm. 7 point mail and 8 point plate covered that nicely. That is one reason why there are stories about battles where no knight were seriously hurt.

I know a few guys in the SCA who would disagree with you.

I'd like to talk to them. Most of the SCA armor I've seen isn't of proper make or quality. I had a rare priviledge with the local Armory held an event a few years back, including some demos from the SCA guys. The armor that the SCA guys wore was nowhere near as good as the quality suits of plate and mail that were inside. Even the SCA guys commented that Henry VIII's armor was like a tank.

If yo go with "proffed" plate over double mail, with a double underneath, not much is going to get through.

The big factor though is that good armor was very expensive. It is one reason why most fof the SCA guys don't have high qality armor sine few peole can afford to pay the price of a small car of armor.

Another problem is that most people who have armor have the wrong armor. FOr instance most people get steel mail, when iron mail provides superior protection, and most mail I've seen is butted mail, which isn't very good.

 

[RMS]

One thing that is pretty unrealistic about precise attacks to bypass armour, is that there's no chance that you fail to hit the gap in the armour, but still land a hit. After all, if I as a crap swordsman were aiming for a gap in someone's armour, chances are if I did hit I'd hit his armour but still miss the gap.

This is true, but points to a basic flaw in many RPGs. If you hit someone in the armor, you have failed to damage them (at any measureable level). Ironically, D&D was closer to the truth than most games in the fact that armor of any period is generally proof against weapons of that period, and so the armor is there really to make it harder to hit you, not absorb damage. Absorbing damage is a modern concept. You have to score hits in joints or openings, or have specialized weapons to exploit specific weaknesses in the armor to get through. If we want to be realistic, armor should reduce your chances of scoring any kind of damaging hit, and should reduce all but some bruising damage if a blow makes contact with the armor. That'd be pretty tough to work out and would require different rules for each level of technology.

This goes hand-n-hand with the fact that you really don't have a whole list of armors around at any point in history. You basically have three at any point: no armor, light/cheap armor (linen, leather, etc. - layered deals that commoners can get ahold of), and whatever metal armor is the peak of technology. D&D, and from it all RPGs, introduce this idea of having 3,4,5 types of metal armors around with various degrees of protection. Only the best would survive, and the rest would be discarded as out of date...and in any case, the cost of any of these put them only in the hands of the wealthy. Basically, anyone who can afford metal armor of any sort can afford to buy the best available.

Sorry, if that tuned into a mini-rant. It just pops in my head when I see discussions get too focused on "realistic armor" because no RPG does this very well, and I'm not sure if any RPG can without getting overly complicated.

 

[RMS]

Ahh no.. Avalon Hill saw fit to add Halflings, Orcs and Sorcery to a game that didn't need them. Oh and lets not forget Slarges! *shakes head*

Slarges are a Gloranthan creature, so I don't think you can blame AH for that.

Lastly, a good suit of mail or plate will stop most sword blows. YOu might get some brusing (or chafing for that matter), but generally most strikes are not going to hurt let alone harm. 7 point mail and 8 point plate covered that nicely. That is one reason why there are stories about battles where no knight were seriously hurt.

I know a few guys in the SCA who would disagree with you.

If they disagreed with that, they would also be disagreeing with the historical evidence. This may be somewhat just perspective, I'll grant. If you're a professional medieval warrior and return from battle to recooperate for several days in bed with bruises, that's a minor injury (and in the RQ HP system would represent a bunch of 0 or 1 point damage blows). If you participate in the SCA, first you're most likely not in top shape so minor damage is magnified, and secondly bruises that leave you in bed for a day or two from your job seem like a pretty big deal.

 

[algauble]

So would it be a good idea to have degrees of success such that the attacker could use one degree of success to determine hit location (say -40%), and a second to bypass armor (say -60% or more depending on coverage)?
I think maybe I like Rurik's version better. Or combine that with the Elfquest idea atg mentioned, and add POW to the armor's coverage percentage? I also think I like using half skill for precise attacks instead of -40%, but that's another story.
Also, what about bypassing magical AP?

 

[Rurik]

Also, what about bypassing magical AP?

According to the rulebook precise attacks bypass magical protection too.

I have a hard time visualizing that and am probably going to change it.

 

[atgxtg]

Personaly I like the idea of giving players a choice. On a critical they can either ignore armour, or do double damage.
Simon Hibbs

One thing that I liked about another RPG and would lose to put into RQ was the ability to "pick" you criticals. Bascially the way it worked was that when acharacter scored a critical he would pick from a list of options depending on the weapon being used and any abilities the character had.

For instance, a sword could get a slash critical (doing more damage) or a stab critical. A staff, coould get a crush or a trip critical. THis would be a neat way to factor in special weapon abilties or weapon abilties vs specific armors. Liek thrust weapons being able to pirece mail, or warhammers punching through plate. You could even work in things like a billhook's ability to unhorse riders this way.

 

[atgxtg]

One thing that is pretty unrealistic about precise attacks to bypass armour, is that there's no chance that you fail to hit the gap in the armour, but still land a hit. After all, if I as a crap swordsman were aiming for a gap in someone's armour, chances are if I did hit I'd hit his armour but still miss the gap.

This is true, but points to a basic flaw in many RPGs. If you hit someone in the armor, you have failed to damage them (at any measureable level). Ironically, D&D was closer to the truth than most games in the fact that armor of any period is generally proof against weapons of that period, and so the armor is there really to make it harder to hit you, not absorb damage. Absorbing damage is a modern concept. You have to score hits in joints or openings, or have specialized weapons to exploit specific weaknesses in the armor to get through. If we want to be realistic, armor should reduce your chances of scoring any kind of damaging hit, and should reduce all but some bruising damage if a blow makes contact with the armor. That'd be pretty tough to work out and would require different rules for each level of technology.

This goes hand-n-hand with the fact that you really don't have a whole list of armors around at any point in history. You basically have three at any point: no armor, light/cheap armor (linen, leather, etc. - layered deals that commoners can get ahold of), and whatever metal armor is the peak of technology. D&D, and from it all RPGs, introduce this idea of having 3,4,5 types of metal armors around with various degrees of protection. Only the best would survive, and the rest would be discarded as out of date...and in any case, the cost of any of these put them only in the hands of the wealthy. Basically, anyone who can afford metal armor of any sort can afford to buy the best available.

Sorry, if that tuned into a mini-rant. It just pops in my head when I see discussions get too focused on "realistic armor" because no RPG does this very well, and I'm not sure if any RPG can without getting overly complicated.

I can think of a few RPGs that do a reasonly good job of it. It just gets a bit more complicated. For instancve once of the reasons why the big heavy weapon were introduced histrocially was to bash the heck out of a guy in heavy armor. Knock him to the ground and keep pounding on him and you can usually disornent and stun him long enough to flip open his helm and shove a dirk in his throat.

Probably more knights were killed by a dagger (misercord) that by a sword, axe, mace, or flail.

 

[atgxtg]

OKay, since everyone like the armor table I feel obligated to much with it. :wink:

Basically, I'm going to revise update the armor table, add in a few more pieces and organize it by location protected. THat way you can choose a what to waer of your head without having to hunt through the whole table.

I have some questions I'd like to get a consesus on (oh boy :shock to see what poeople want.

1) Do you want all the differernt types AP ranges for every location? For instance, as the chart stands you can't get a plate skirt, or scale leggins/greaves. I can just do a full range of up to 6 point armor for every location, or just the ones that are normally used.

2) I was thinking of putting back the ability of wearith cloth/leather underneath other armor as per RQ2. So someone in a mail shirt can (and should) have cloth underneath.

3) Ring, Cuirboilli, & Scale. Bascially, the MRQ armor vales for ring and scale use them to fill in the gaps between leather and mail. Throwing Curiboilli back intot he game messes up ring, as Curiboilli provides the same protection but is lighter and cheaper.

I was thinking of restoring RQ2 values for ring (4) and scale (5). This will fix the Cuirboilli vs. Ring problem. TO resolve the newly created Scale vs. Mail problem, I'll stick with the RQ2 solution and have scale be cheaper but a little heavier, more encumbering.

So I can either resote RQ2 vales, or just leave the curiboilli/ring conflict.


Once I can see what you folks want, I'll finish up the chart.

 

[Rurik]

I want Reflec over Battle Dress.

 

[Rurik]

Seriously though:

1) I would prefer the missing peices be left that way, though I don't feel strongly either way.

2) I wouldn't allow layering. Damage and DB are scaled back slightly from previous editions. The descriptions in the MRQ rules say padding is included as part of the armor (for mail anyway).

3) I like Cuirboilli and using the RQ2 values for Ring and Scale.

My opinions are based upon the fact I am planing on playing in Glorantha, answers one and three are based on that setting. I could see arguing the other way for later periods.

 

[Arkat]

Slarges are a Gloranthan creature, so I don't think you can blame AH for that.

I have pretty much every RQ book I could lay my hands on. I can safely say none of them have Slarges in them until AH dumped RQ3 out with them, Halflings and Orcs.

If they disagreed with that, they would also be disagreeing with the historical evidence. This may be somewhat just perspective, I'll grant. If you're a professional medieval warrior and return from battle to recooperate for several days in bed with bruises, that's a minor injury (and in the RQ HP system would represent a bunch of 0 or 1 point damage blows). If you participate in the SCA, first you're most likely not in top shape so minor damage is magnified, and secondly bruises that leave you in bed for a day or two from your job seem like a pretty big deal.

Historical evidence shows that there are many weapons designed to pierce armor effectively, so I guess it all depends what your trying to prove. Fully Armored Knights were effective troops but they were not immune to damage just by virtue of wearing plate. Get hit by an arrow from a Welsh Longbow and you might as well be wearing Cheesecloth. Thier training also likely had a lot to do with thier effectiveness. Knights would certainly be better trained at fighting and avoiding blows then say levied peasant militia..

A buddy of mine makes armor for SCA and period movies, including medieval, persian and oriental armors. http://www.alchemyarmory.com/
Take a peek if you like.

 

[atgxtg]

Historical evidence shows that there are many weapons designed to pierce armor effectively, so I guess it all depends what your trying to prove. Fully Armored Knights were effective troops but they were not immune to damage just by virtue of wearing plate. Get hit by an arrow from a Welsh Longbow and you might as well be wearing Cheesecloth. Thier training also likely had a lot to do with thier effectiveness. Knights would certainly be better trained at fighting and avoiding blows then say levied peasant militia..

A buddy of mine makes armor for SCA and period movies, including medieval, persian and oriental armors. http://www.alchemyarmory.com/
Take a peek if you like.

Historcial evidence is very contradictory. For example there are strong armumments on both sides regarding the effectiveness of a welsh warbow against plate. THere is also some good evidence to support that a bow wasn't that fatastically effective against mail.

MOst battles where the bow proved superior to armor had circimstances that widlenly slanted the battle in the archers favor. Like the mud & states at Crect, plut the Fench Knights' charging in groups rather than en mass. Even the bowes ability to pentrate armor is quetioned as there is little evidence to show that a warbow arrow can penetrate "proofed" plate and not shtter onoff it. At aArgincourt and Crecy the French Knight typically worse curiboilli on thier limbs and that is what was penetrated. At least at combat ranges.

Generally beyond 20 yeards of so the arrows ability to pentrate armor slack off. With 20 yards and it is very lethal.


Most modern tests tend to be seriously flawed in one direction or the other. For one thing modern archers can't draw the powerful bows of the medieval peroid. On the other hand most tests are done at close range ranther than combat ranges, and often without propper padding or with something in the armor-all of whickh makes a difference.


As far as training making a difference, certainly. Training made a big difference, also the fact that the peasant levies never got thier hands of many decent combat weapons, thansk to the weapon laws.

 

[atgxtg]

I want Reflec over Battle Dress.

I've got Future World, ya know.

Tinsel Armor (Reflec) AP (P-2, B-4, L-9) ENC 1 Cost: 500 Credtis
Ceramet Armor (Battle Dress) AP (P-7, B-7, L-7) ENC 3 Cost: 6000 Credits (black market price) :wink:


BTW, the description of cerament armor points to it as "stromtrooper armor"
:idea:

 

[algauble]

I want Reflec over Battle Dress.

I've got Future World, ya know.

Tinsel Armor (Reflec) AP (P-2, B-4, L-9) ENC 1 Cost: 500 Credtis
Ceramet Armor (Battle Dress) AP (P-7, B-7, L-7) ENC 3 Cost: 6000 Credits (black market price) :wink:


BTW, the description of cerament armor points to it as "stromtrooper armor"
:idea:

P - pierce?, B - bash?, and L - laser?
Is that ENC for a full suit?
-al (who doesn't have Future World)

 

[atgxtg]

I want Reflec over Battle Dress.

I've got Future World, ya know.

Tinsel Armor (Reflec) AP (P-2, B-4, L-9) ENC 1 Cost: 500 Credtis
Ceramet Armor (Battle Dress) AP (P-7, B-7, L-7) ENC 3 Cost: 6000 Credits (black market price) :wink:


BTW, the description of cerament armor points to it as "stromtrooper armor"
:idea:

P - pierce?, B - bash?, and L - laser?
Is that ENC for a full suit?
-al (who doesn't have Future World)

P= Projectile (slugthrower like a 9mm pisol or M16 rifle)
B= Blaster (bolt of plasma in a magentic bottle)
L=Laser (coherent light, burns holes-one out of three ain't bad.)



The ENC rules for Future world allowd a character to carry up to his STR in ENC without any peanlty. 1 ENC was equal to 1 SIZ. Carrying more that your STR in ENC gave a peanlty to movement and peanlties to climb, jump, move quielty. This was on a per point basis.

Future World, like all the Worlds of WOnder games, didn't use Hit Locations, so the armor protection is for full coverage. Armor ENC was eqaul to the AP score. So 3 pount curiboilli would have 3 ENC, and 6 point armor would have 6 ENC.

You can basically double the ENC to get an MRQ equivalent.

 

[RMS]

I have pretty much every RQ book I could lay my hands on. I can safely say none of them have Slarges in them until AH dumped RQ3 out with them, Halflings and Orcs.

I also own almost everything, if that's a measuring stick. (I even have a copy of both Daughter of Darkness and Elderad, for what little that is worth! ) Yes, Slarges didn't appear until RQ3, but that's because they inhabit a large portion of Pamatela which had no information published in the RQ2 days. I never said that they appeared earlier, just that it's not correct to lump them in with generic RPG races like Haflings and Orcs, since Slarges at least exist in Glorantha and to the best of my knowledge aren't a generic rpg race that exits in other worlds.

Historical evidence shows that there are many weapons designed to pierce armor effectively, so I guess it all depends what your trying to prove.

Most of said weapons are designed to pierce weak spots in armor effectively, which they can do and is what I said before. What they can't do, in general, is pierce parts such as the helm, breastplate, greaves, etc. They can pierce the joints. As time goes on, it gets tougher and tougher to do this, but the weapons become more specialised.

Fully Armored Knights were effective troops but they were not immune to damage just by virtue of wearing plate. Get hit by an arrow from a Welsh Longbow and you might as well be wearing Cheesecloth.

Nobody is immune to damage. Sure, anyone can get lucky and get a perfect (critical?) shot in on a knight, but generally a knight was taken down other ways, at least in the late medieval period. The horse is vulnerable, knights become fewer and fewer so can be ganged up on by lightly armored troops, etc. There's a lot to it, and of course it evolves over time.

FYI, it's pure myth that a longbow can penetrate plate armor. It won't do much more than dent it at point-blank-range, and the way that bows are used in battle doesn't provide that much penetrating power. The famous English longbowmen killed far more knights with daggers than with arrows. What they did do is kill lots and lots of horses and lighter armed men-at-arms with arrows, and put armies in complete disarray a couple of times.

 

[RMS]

Historcial evidence is very contradictory. For example there are strong armumments on both sides regarding the effectiveness of a welsh warbow against plate. THere is also some good evidence to support that a bow wasn't that fatastically effective against mail.

Here's a game anyone can try. Take a piece of steel (granted it'll be modern, but we're ballparking here ) the thickness of a breat plate, take a medium powered rifle like a 30-30 and take shots at it. You might be suprised at how little damage the breast plate takes with a standard lead bullet, and that has several times the penetrating power of any arrow. (If you could get ahold of AP bullets, you'd punch right through it of course.) If you do punch through the steel, move back a bit and try again, and then try with the slightest angles and see what happens.

MOst battles where the bow proved superior to armor had circimstances that widlenly slanted the battle in the archers favor. Like the mud & states at Crect, plut the Fench Knights' charging in groups rather than en mass. Even the bowes ability to pentrate armor is quetioned as there is little evidence to show that a warbow arrow can penetrate "proofed" plate and not shtter onoff it. At aArgincourt and Crecy the French Knight typically worse curiboilli on thier limbs and that is what was penetrated. At least at combat ranges.

I've never heard of the curiboilli before, but from what I know, most actual knight deaths come about in a couple of ways: one is a swarm of longbowmen (and supporting troops) with daggers to already worn down and exhausted knights. The other is that the English common soldiers had no thoughts of ransom, like a knight, and killed in mass captured knights after the battles.

Most modern tests tend to be seriously flawed in one direction or the other. For one thing modern archers can't draw the powerful bows of the medieval peroid.

I've never bought this. If a modern man can't draw the bow, then there's something wrong with our understanding of the draw strength of the bow. I can accept that without the practise that a yeoman had, we can't duplicate accuracy, but drawing is just brute strength. We're significantly bigger and stronger now. (Yes, I have shot bows in my life, but not for a long, long time.)

 

[Rurik]

Here's a game anyone can try. Take a piece of steel (granted it'll be modern, but we're ballparking here ) the thickness of a breat plate, take a medium powered rifle like a 30-30 and take shots at it. You might be suprised at how little damage the breast plate takes with a standard lead bullet, and that has several times the penetrating power of any arrow. (If you could get ahold of AP bullets, you'd punch right through it of course.) If you do punch through the steel, move back a bit and try again, and then try with the slightest angles and see what happens.

Isn't it pretty much universally accepted that it was the advent of firearms, albeit primitive, that rendered armor obsolete?

 

[atgxtg]

I've never bought this. If a modern man can't draw the bow, then there's something wrong with our understanding of the draw strength of the bow. I can accept that without the practise that a yeoman had, we can't duplicate accuracy, but drawing is just brute strength. We're significantly bigger and stronger now. (Yes, I have shot bows in my life, but not for a long, long time.)

Well they do have the bows to prove it. The problem is that one's ability to draw a bow isn't quite brute strength. For one thing you are usspoed to use your back muscles, but most archers today, not needing to draw as much pull weight, lean to just use their arms.

Secondly, there is the problem of holding back the drawn bow long enough to take your shot. Modern bows are usualy fairly low draw (30 pounds) or are compound bows that drop the draw weight down once you pull them back around half way.

Then there is the ability to do so repeatedly. Pulling back and loosing a couple of dozen arrows at 100 pounds draw weight is equilvant to picking up and tossing around a couple of dozen 100 pound packages. Worse, because you don't get to use your legs.

The problem isn't so much a lack of strength, but a lack on practice. Longbowmen used to have to practice by law for 20 hours a week because of the time it took to be skiled enough to be useful in battle. Younger men were started off with older bows, requiring less draw.

I have no doubts that if someone put the time and effort into it they would be able to use a warbow, just that modern archers simply haven't sufficiencent reason to do so.

The same problem exists with memory. Back in the days when people were illiterate, a shopkeper kept track on his inventory in his head, along with what is cost him, what he would charge for average custoomers, what he would charge to his firends, and what he would charge to the nobles. Once the average person learned how to write stuff down, the need to be able to remember things declined.